FAA aims to extend its space tourism rules worldwide

Development of personal spaceflight safety oversight should be part of a United Nations process separate from existing international aviation organisations, according to a regulatory model being promoted by the US Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA's John Sloan presented the work to date at a 29 October meeting of the organisation's office of commercial space transportation's advisory committee. His presentation says: "It is too early for international safety standards on human space flight. Too early for an "International Civil Aviation Organisation for space". We recommend bringing the international issues into the United Nations process."

The FAA views this international approach as a basis for suborbital point-to-point transport, while the ICAO for space proposal it rejects would see a new commercial spaceflight department for the aviation regulatory body. This year the FAA has helped form a new International Astronautical Federation commercial spaceflight safety committee. It has a tri-chair that consists of the FAA, Virgin Galactic and the SSC.